Hello again, my lovelies.
Firstly, my writing goal…yeah, that keeled over and died recently. The first week, I made my goal 5 out of 7 days, and one of those days, I went way above and beyond with 4,200 words! But since then a shit ton of things have happened – 2 proofreading projects for clients, a dying relative, getting sideswiped by Bear and Colt who now demand a story which requires a shit ton of research… I hope to start writing again soon, maybe today while I have time, and getting back to my goal again.
Secondly, and the reason for the post, is this article by published author Heidi Cullinan titled, “If You Build It, They Don’t Necessarily Come: The Heaven and Hell of Marketing A Book.” (Posted warning on the article: Warning: this post is long and all about publishing. Possibly boring, do not feel bad if you skip or bail.)
In this article, Ms. Cullinan makes several important points. I will list them and discuss them briefly, but do please go read the original article on her blog to support her. And by the way, these thoughts are directed at myself as much as other writers.
- I have no idea how/why any of it happens, and though I wish it were otherwise, I don’t think anybody knows.
Says Ms. Cullinan: “That is basically the whole point of this post. Everything beyond this will be me illustrating my firm belief there is nothing you can do to guarantee anything, no magic bullet, no marketing plan, no nothing that replaces the crazy-making cocktail of hard work and dumb luck.” She also gives a whole list of disclaimers that are worth checking out.
- Amazon is really important, but its lists are a crazy-making pile of nonsense.
Says Ms. Cullinan: “There’s a lot to talk about regarding the power Amazon has cornered and what might happen if their power extinguishes all its competition, laughable as the competition is. And yet, grasshopper, those lists mean next to nothing.”
Here, Ms. Cullinan talks about how lists and rankings don’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things since they don’t directly relate to book sales. Just because a book is #3 on an Amazon Bestseller List doesn’t mean that it has sold 5,000 copies. Maybe it only sold 10 copies and the #4 book sold 5 copies. So don’t waste time watching lists, and if you do, don’t sweat and stress over them.
*Another important thing to note here is that if a reader buys books directly from publishers, authors make more money from sales than they do at Amazon or ARe. So unless the books you want to buy are self-published, buy from publishers. They make it easy and offer all the usual formats.
- Reviews are great, but they are not some kind of holy grail that will move the needle in a reliable way.
Says Ms. Cullinan: “I know, there are the theories of what amount of reader reviews posted on Amazon correlate to sales. These might be true, but I would never bank on them, because unless this comes from a statement from Amazon, it’s not a sure thing, and you should not build your career on it. The truth is, some authors have a very social, active presence, and this garners them a lot of attention–and that might be a lot of sales too. What you can’t do is assume that because your readers are kind of quiet but someone else’s are vocal that they correlate, and therefore the other person is driving in gold-plated vehicles. Some readers are just not vocal, or not with you.“
- Never do anything in marketing you aren’t comfortable doing, no matter how much you think you should push through anyway. There are no surefire strategies, and doing most of them badly will harm you more than not doing them at all.
Says: Ms. Cullinan: “There are things everyone tells us to do, strategies we’re told are the way, and yet if you feel uncomfortable, don’t…. At the same time, always push yourself to do more, learn more, market more. Just take your time.”
If social media works for you, then use it. If it isn’t something that you do well, then don’t do it. Simple.
- Some of the people haunting you on that list might have bought reviews, some might be hacks, some might be better than you, but none of them matter and you should stop looking at them and paying attention, but you will anyway, so get something to drink and do yoga.
Says: Ms. Cullinan: “Unless you are a nun, you have looked at those lists I said don’t mean anything, and you’ve said some version of how the fuck did they get there? … sometimes, yeah, I call shenanigans on “bestsellers.” In my head or with close friends, never in public because I am not a dummy. Thing is, I could very well be wrong… I can’t know. I’ll never know. Neither will you.”
So how do you sell books? According to Ms. Cullinan, two things: 1) “write books, regularly, and well” and 2) get lucky.
- Your best asset in marketing is yourself, which means you need to figure out who the hell you are. And you cannot be ashamed of whatever you find.
Says Ms. Cullinan: “We cannot change who we are, but we can get real about what “who we are” means and own it… You need to see what you are, the guts and the glory, the warts and the wonderful.”
*There are other sections in addition to these, but my post is getting long so I’m not adding them here. To see the rest of it, read Heidi Cullinan’s original article about what she learned through the years about marketing books.
I’ll end with a fantastic quote that I love from the end of Ms. Cullinan’s article:
You must never think your books or your readers or your fame or anything will save you but you. You must never think they will define you. You define you. If you can see that, if you can own that? You won’t just be great at marketing your work and doing the dance of social media. You will be one hell of a writer.
Until next time, lovelies.
*Heidi Cullinan is the author of such books as Dirty Laundry, Second Hand (co-written with Marie Sexton), A Private Gentleman, Dance With Me, The Pirate’s Game, and Nowhere Ranch published at Riptide Publishing, Samhain Publishing, Dreamspinner Press, and Loose Id. She can be found at her website or her blog, as well as the usual social media outlets.
